In the human anatomy, various bone portions articulate at joints relative to another bone portion. For example a femur, in the human anatomy, articulates relative to a tibia to form the knee joint.
Although a natural or normal anatomy generally allows for substantially smooth articulation of various portions, circumstances, such as, injury or age, may reduce the pain free and easy articulation of the various bone portions. Therefore, procedures, such as orthopedic procedures, may be performed to substantially repair and make more pain free articulations of the various anatomical portions.
Also, various other anatomical portions, such as other bone sections, may become weakened and need repair over time. Therefore, other procedures, such as, resection or removal of selected portions of the bone portion may be required. The resection generally prepares the bone portion for receiving a selected implant to allow for replacement or healing of the selected or injured bone portion. To repair a joint, such as a knee joint, resection of the various femoral and tibial portions may be required. The portions are resected to receive a distal femoral implant to replace the condyles of the femur.
Generally, the resection of the bone portions may cause injury to soft tissue to access the bone portions. For example, the soft tissue may be pierced or cut to gain access to the bone portion which is underneath the soft tissue. Therefore, the soft tissue may be cut and moved to allow access to the selected bone portion which may cause some injury to the soft tissue. In addition, the tools necessary to resect the various portions are generally large in size and require the large openings.
Therefore, it is desired to provide a procedure which allows for substantially small incisions to perform the necessary procedures. It is further desired to provide surgical elements which allow for minimally or less invasive procedures and minimal trauma during a surgical procedure.